Time Traveling to 1967

On 01/27/2017 at 04:52 PM by KnightDriver

I am a long time mix tape creator. Magnetic tape gave way to a laser and compact disc and I made mix CDs. Then the internet and ipods came on the scene and now I rip all sorts of formates to my PC and arrange them how I will on my iPod to take on the go. The arrangements have gotten more and more complex as access to more music has happened. My latest arrangement has me focusing on one year for a whole month. This month it is 1967. I collect as many albums as I can get my hands on and shuffle it all on my iPod while I drive at night for work. Well, why stop there, I said to myself. Why not include games as well and go super retro, or, at least, play stuff that may be related. So I researched board games and arcade machines that were released in 1967. Then I realized comics are closely related to all that stuff, so I researched what was new in comics as well. Thanks to wiki, I now have a pretty cool list of stuff to check out. Here's the list:

Board Games: Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. Well, it's been rereleased but I'm not too interested in replaying it so what's similar in video gaming. Any boxing title, so I put the Ready-2-Rumble series on my list; although, there's not current gen title for that. So I went to 1v1 fighting games. Mortal Kombat X looks great but Injustice: Gods Among Us looks even better. Put a story in a fighting game and I'm in. So I picked that up at Gamestop the other day.

Arcade Machines: Mostly this became a list of pinball machines. One that I found released in '67 that I could play was Derby Day. This was available at my local arcade Pinball Gallery and I went there today to play it (next blog will describe that and the others I found there on an electronic pinball multi-table machine).

Comics: In 1967, Detective Comics revealed Batgirl for the first time. So I looked for her appearances in video games. She's been in most of the Batman games that have come out. So I put the latest down first: Batman Arkham Knight and Batman Return to Arkham collection. I don't have those yet but I can rent them from the library maybe next week. I already have Lego Batman, which is the only Lego Batman game to have Batgirl, so I'll play that this weekend. Also on the list was The Adventures of Batman and Robin for SNES which I've always wanted to play. I'll have to see if my Jay St. Video Games retro store has that since Pinball Gallery didn't have it on any of their multi-game arcade cabinets (They have over a thousand retro console and arcade video games there by the way).

So that's my project for the rest of January, which is almost over. February will begin my obsession with 1968 just in time for BaD.

By there!

GrayHaired

01/27/2017 at 06:23 PM

I had a Rock "em Sock "em Robots.....I was 9 years old in 1967

KnightDriver

01/30/2017 at 01:10 AM

I was just being born. I keep thinking of all that psychedelic stuff going on while I was in the womb. Influence?

I know I played a Rock 'em Sock 'em robots sometime in the 70s when I was a little kid.

Super Step Contributing Writer

01/28/2017 at 02:19 AM

Do you mean Injustice looks better than MKX graphically? I own and like both, but I feel the opposite there.

I miss pinball machines.

Arkham Knight has a decent amount of focus on Batgirl in its story.

What's your favorite song from '67?

01/30/2017 at 01:02 AM

I was torn between Injustice in MKX but I went with Injustice when I saw Zatanna as a playable character. I want to see some of those DC characters in action.

Pinball is pretty cool. Freakin' hard some of those games. I'm never sure what the rules are exactly without looking up a rule guide. One of the newer machines I played, No Good Gofers, does a good job letting you know what to do by the voice work.

Is Batgirl playable in Arkham Knight? I should've looked to see what Batman games had her as a playable character.

So many, but the last few weeks those two Jimi Hendrix albums, Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love are just blowing my socks off especially the song Bold as Love.

01/30/2017 at 02:54 PM

She's playable in DLC. I don't remember her being playable in the main game, and if she is, it's short-li ... actually, no, she wouldn't be. She's Oracle in the game.

"Bold as Love" is a lot more relaxed than the songs of his I know. It's kind of like when I heard "Beast of Burden" by Rolling Stones for the first time. I love that mellow style.

Batgirl is definitely playable in Injustice though.

Again, just to clarify, you mean Injustice "looked better" as in you wanted to play it more, right? Not that it looked better in terms of graphics compared to MKX? If you really think Injustice looks better on a technical level, is it the art style? It does look more gritty compared to the shinier MKX.

01/31/2017 at 12:58 AM

I knew she was a voice in the game, but playable in the DLC is great.

I'll name another, "Who am I" by Country Joe and the Fish.

Oh cool! I was just looking at the box for Injustice and wondering if she was in there.

Not so much looked better graphically, but just the DC licence is interesting to me a little more than the MK characters.

01/31/2017 at 01:17 PM

Ok, that makes more sense. lol

Matt Snee Staff Writer

01/28/2017 at 10:48 AM

Batgirl is cool. Gotta love red heads.

I like sixties music. Not because it's protest stuff or anything, just because it's very bluesy and jammy.

01/30/2017 at 12:38 AM

I wanted to play the games she's in and try and play as her in them without worrying about the rest of the game. Looks like I might not have time now because of Borderlands, but there's always Feb and 1968. I can at least line up some games and think about them. Actually, I think it's more that I want an excuse to go buy some games. I was depressed the last few weeks, but I felt a little better letting myself get Injustice.

I've really noticed the blues influence in a lot of the 60s music. Mainly Brits picking up on American blues and doing their own take on it, but American groups too like Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead.

goaztecs

01/31/2017 at 12:49 PM

I tweeted about missing making mixtapes on actual cassettes. It was so much fun trying to figure out the perfect mix all while trying to fit everything on a 60 or 90 minute tape. This was a lot more enjoyable than burning a CD or adding tracks to a Minidisc. Now its just drag, and sync to your phone/iPod/mp3 player and you're good to go.

MKX and Injustice both look great but my favorite is probably MKX, but I am excited for the Injustice sequel.

02/01/2017 at 02:30 AM

I made so many mix tapes way back when. There was always a minute or two at the end of each side I couldn't fill, so my friend Sean and I would record funny dialog in those spots. Oh man, and the different types of tapes too. Some were called "metal" or something like that, or "gold", I forget really, but there were different kinds, some which were supposed to be better. I got a 120 minute cassett tape once to make a longer mix but they weren't supposed to be of such great quality for some reason.

I was still making mix tapes right around the turn of the century. In 2004 I got an iPod for Xmas and soon after I got rid of all my stereo equipment. I carried my mixes over to the computer and made CD mixes for a while, but then I started listening to groups of albums instead because you can manipulate so much more music now. I kind of miss the old mix tapes though. Those mixes were intense to listen to - really special.

02/01/2017 at 10:56 AM

I never got into the 120 min cassettes. I always bought the brick of 90 min cassettes. I wish I would have kept those tapes because now with my USB Cassette Player I could have copied them over to iTunes. Sure the sound wouldn't be as great but it would be a fun trip down memory lane.

03/03/2017 at 11:39 PM

I have all the tapes my friend Sean and I made. I've already converted them to CD and they're now on my harddrive, but I would've liked to have kept some of my mix tapes. I used to have some of them. Not sure where they went now.

PixlBit

Time Traveling to 1967

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